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The Relation 

of the Trade School 

to the Trade 




■ I !■■ im I ■ 




The Relation of the 
Trade School to the Trade 



An Address by 

William H! Sayward 

Secretary of the Boston Master Builders' Association 

delivered at the Graduating Exercises of the 

North End Union Plumbing School 

Boston, May 15, 1908 



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Printed at the 

School of Printing, North End Union 

Boston, 1908 



Done by Apprentices in the School of Printing 
North End Union, Boston 






By Transfer 

D. C. Public Library 

AUG 17 1934 



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The Relation of the Trade School 
to the Trade 

I AM to address you on the specific subject, 
*'The Relation of the Trade School to the 
Trade." This naturally leads me away from 
the broad and interesting field which a discussion 
of the value of a trade to the individual always 
opens, but the restrictions which my subject im- 
poses will or should be of advantage, inasmuch as 
my observations must be concentrated upon a 
feature of the general subject of trade-training 
which has brought out widely divergent opinions 
among those most deeply concerned in the wel- 
fare of those who are addressing themselves to 
'' learning a trade " with the expectation and hope 
that they will be able to earn their living by prac- 
ticing the trade when learned. 

There have been "and still are those who believe 
that a craft in all its essentials may be acquired 
through the instruction and practice afforded 
in a trade school ; and there have been and 
still are those who claim that the trade school 
can do little more than impart a moderate 
amount of knowledge and facility in the minor 
features of a craft, and that the major part of the 
technique and skilful handling of tools and of 
the individual can only be expected through con- 
tact with the varying demands of the trade itself 
as operated upon a commercial basis. 

It appears to me that the explanation of this 
wide divergence of opinion may be found in the 

[3] 



Relation of the Trade School to the Trade 

fact that the trade school itself is not as yet very 
fully developed, at all events is very far from be- 
ing fully taken advantage of, and that while up- 
on the one hand we have the enthusiasts who, 
before anything is thoroughly tested, rush to the 
conclusion that the trade school is capable of 
curing all the ills that the changes in the conduct 
of work and other pressures have wrought in the 
body of the trades ; upon the other hand we have 
those who, with equal haste and lack of experi- 
ence conclude that any method of teaching a 
craft other than ''the way of the fathers" has 
very little practical value in it. The " way of 
the fathers," i.e. the "old apprenticeship system," 
was most valuable and at the time perhaps the 
only available way, but it does not by any means 
follow that that way exhausted all the possibilities 
or provided anything which a later time and a 
larger scope of work and opportunity might de- 
velop ; neither should it be argued that newer 
forms render useless or may safely shoulder out 
of the way certain features or accompaniments 
of older methods. 

Trade schools have already justified their ex- 
istence, but I apprehend that the careful observer 
has ftoted that we have thus far only been feeling 
our way, and that we may anticipate not simply 
that the trade school '' has come to stay," but that 
its opportunity for usefulness has only been hinted 
at in what may be termed a primary stage of its 
development. 

[4] 



•• 1 » • • * 

• • •, • ••• • 

• •• •♦•. •• 



Relation of the Trade School to the Trade 

Just at the present moment there is a wide- 
spread interest, an aroused concern, in industrial 
training. The world seems to have awakened to 
the fact that education has not been advanced as 
it should be along industrial lines. Those who 
have been brought into closest contact with the 
investigations now under way in this field, find, 
among many other questions, the very important 
one which is suggested in the topic I am discuss- 
ing, namely, what relation does the trade school 
bear to the trade itself, and how can opportunity 
for trade training be offered so as to advance the 
best interests of the individuals who engage in it, 
of the trade itself, and of the community as a 
whole ? 

In my judgment the answer to this question 
will be found in the conclusion that the trade 
school can only hope to attain its legitimate use 
and best results when it goes hand in hand with 
the trades themselves — in other words the great- 
est effectiveness of the school instruction will 
come when it is pursued coincident with work 
at the trade — trade-training on the job. 

I cannot conceive it possible for a trade school 
to graduate a full-fledged and efficient craftsman, 
/. e. a workman equal to the proper execution of 
work, any more than a law school can turn out 
a craftsman of the law, i.e. an attorney not only 
legally qualified but equal to efficient and proper 
handling of legal matters. In either case, as in 
others of similar character, the efficiency which 

[5] 



Relation of the Trade School to the Trade 

is wholly a personal matter and which fixes largely 
the value of individual effort can only be gained 
by degrees and under the conditions which the 
craft in operation presents. 

The word craft suggests an illustration : 

A school of instruction for those who wish to 
become sailors may readily be conceived of as 
possible, up to a certain point, on land, but how- 
ever well equipped the student maybe with knowl- 
edge of mast and sail and rope and the intricacies 
of adjustment necessitated by all the winds that 
blow, however nimbly and dexterously he may 
handle himself on some firm-planted rigging on 
the stable shore, his test can only come when he 
attempts to tread the deck and climb the mast 
and cling to swaying spar as the vessel rolls and 
tosses on the waves, or essays to guide her as 
she plunges through real seas. 

It is one thing to acquire knowledge as to 
what can and should be done under certain cir- 
cumstances, and quite another thing to perform 
the work under actual conditions with all their 
accompaniments of danger and responsibility. 

What the community at all times especially 
needs is men and women properly trained for the 
tasks they are to undertake in life ; and so far as 
schools may be helpful they should be established 
as a means toward an end, understanding always 
that best methods can only be determined through 
long and patient experience with the usual accom- 
paniment of mistakes. 

[6] 



Relation of the Trade School to the Trade 

I think it is quite fully recognized now, how- 
ever different a theory may once have prevailed, 
that schools cannot accomplish everything even 
for the most exceptional student. There must 
be opportunity for application and adaptation of 
the principles and processes which have been 
taught, in order that facility in the work itself 
may be acquired. 

AH this is particularly true of the skilled 
manual trades, i.e. the trades that require some- 
thing more than mere exertion of the muscles 
in pure labor or toil, — and everything in our 
experience in the premises thus far seems to me 
to point to the conclusion that opportunity for 
application and adaptation of the school instruc- 
tion and school technique to real work should be 
close and intimate — should be practically in col- 
laboration with the school. 

If this conclusion is correct, then it may well 
follow that any other method of trade training 
than one pursued as I have indicated, i.e. in con- 
junction with work at the trade itself, may be 
unfair and undesirable, whether the opportunity 
for such training be furnished by the State or 
otherwise. 

Whatever training for a trad® is offered, it 
seems to me that this discrimination should be 
exercised in order that injustice may not be done 
to the individual or to the trade itself. 

It would be unfair to the individual who really 
wishes to become a workman to allow him to 

[7] 



Relation of the Trade School to the Trade 

enter a trade school with the idea that he could 
there be fully fitted and made a complete and 
efficient workman ; and it would be equally unfair 
to the trade itself to send half-trained men out 
into the field. Neither is it worth while to spend 
the time and money of either public or private 
trade schools, to any extent, in training those who 
have no serious purpose as regards the trade, who 
only want to know how to perform its various 
manual functions. While dilettanti of this char- 
acter do not operate as harmfully to the trade 
itself as do the half-equipped men who intrude 
before their time into actual work in competition 
with others who are following the trade as a call- 
ing, they do not, at all events, harmonize with 
the general spirit and serious purpose of the work 
in hand, — that is the proper training of those 
who are undertaking to do the real practical work 
of the world as craftsmen. 

I ask you to bear these points clearly in mind : 

First : That trade instruction in schools should 
be differentiated in our minds from the trade 
training which must be elsewhere obtained, and 
that this trade instruction can furnish but part 
of the theory and part of the technique. 

Second: That the rest of the theory and the rest 
of the technique, which perhaps is to result 
eventually in developing a "craftsman," can only 
be secured through practice on actual work under 
trade and commercial conditions. 

Third : That the most effective way to give 

[8] 



Relation of the Trade School to the Trade 

the student these two divisions of instruction and 
training" is to associate them as closely as the con- 
ditions of the particular kind of business will per- 
mit, so that the school instruction and the trade 
training proper may be practically simultaneous. 

Foiu'tJi : That it is unfair to the individual who 
undertakes to learn a trade to furnish him with 
less than full opportunity to perfect himself as a 
craftsman. 

FiftJi : That it is unfair to a.ny trade itself or 
to the craftsmen engaged in it, to turn out half- 
equipped workmen who tend not only to produce 
a poor quality of work, but to act as improper 
competitors against competent craftsmen. 

Sixth : That the interest of the community, 
particularly if it is to pay a portion of the expense, 
demand a product from trade instruction and 
trade training that shall be a reasonably complete 
product — as near an all-around development of 
each individual in his chosen trade as can be 
expected of that individual, to the end that those 
who are to be accepted as " craftsmen " in the 
skilled trades may be capable of performing the 
work as it should be done. 

With these points in view, let us consider what 
process may be approved as most likely to pro- 
duce the desired result. 

It seems to me that the road is comparatively 
straight, although not absolutely clear. 

I would like to say, in parentheses, that while 
I am of the opinion that instruction of children 

[9] 



Relation of the Trade School to the Trade 

should include, even at a very early age, funda- 
mentals in uses of the hand, as well as fundament- 
als in the uses of the brain, and that all along 
through the years of their primary as well as their 
advanced instruction they should be familiarized 
with the useful manual methods of work with 
which they will come in contact when they pass 
out of school life, I am just as firmly convinced 
that no place should be given in the general 
school curriculum for "trade instruction " /^r 
se, — this should be kept apart, as I shall later 
indicate. 

The process which will lead to best results, it 
seems to me, should start with the presumption 
that the distinct instruction which a real trade 
school may properly off er should not be open indis- 
criminately — that is, without regard to the fitness 
of applicants, or to the ends they have in view. 

(2) Those who are accepted for instruction in 
the school should be those, and those only, who 
have positively dedicated themselves to the trade 
they wish instruction in, and this dedication should 
be manifested by commitment as an apprentice to 
some reputable employer who, as his share in the 
enterprise, will at least engage to put the appren- 
tice into such relations with actual work that he 
may be getting that practical training in the trade 
essential to supplement and complete the instruc- 
tion he is contemporaneously receiving in the 
school. 

(3) Employers should be required, in turn, not 

[ID] 



Relation of the Trade School to the Trade 

to take on any apprentices except upon condition 
that they attend the trade school, if there be one 
in that branch, for the purpose of keeping up in 
the instruction which the school provides. 

(4.) Employer and apprentice together should 
be held to utilize the opportunities of the trade 
school instruction and the trade training on the 
work in as close association as the conditions 
under which the particular trade is carried on 
make possible. If conditions permit a division of 
day-time hours, so that a part of the week may 
be spent in the school and part on the work, it 
should be so arranged, but if this be not feasible, 
then an equivalent of this arrangement should be 
provided by evening work in the school. In some 
cases where large shops or establishments have 
or can have an apprentice school of their own, 
under their own roof, so to speak, an ideal con- 
dition of interchange of time between instruction 
and training on actual work is possible ; but in 
most cases in the manual trades, especially in the 
building trades, this opportunity is not possible 
of accomplishment, and a less ideal condition must 
be accepted. 

The mutual responsibility which the process 
above described is based upon is, to my mind, 
vitally essential to best results. This combined ob- 
ligation must be fixed and positive if we are ever 
to hope for a high development of trade schools. 

In this connection, it seems to me appropriate 
to refer to an important suggestion made, I think, 

[II] 



Relation of the Trade School to the Trade 

at one of the hearings this winter before a com- 
mittee of our State Legislature. 

That suggestion was that in arranging any 
method of trade training under State direction, 
control, or supervision, specific preference should 
be given to co-operation with groups of employ- 
ers who are naturally and properly supposed to 
have concern in the development of craftsmen in 
their line of work. 

This suggestion appeals to me with ever increas- 
ing significance, and I am thoroughly convinced 
that unless some such method of utilizing the 
force which employers, and employers alone, rep- 
resent be adopted, that much of the money which 
the State may expend will be wasted. 

My reason for believing that actual, specific 
trade instruction ought not to be mingled with the 
general education which is considered essential 
for all, whatever their future calling in life may 
be, is surely a practical one, to wit, that such a 
mingling is a physical impossibility. 

Justice cannot be done to the fundamental gen- 
eral courses, and at the same time and under the 
same direction to specific trade courses. To make 
place and provision for both in one general curric- 
ulum is absurd — all may need to be thoroughly 
grounded in the few fundamental studies which 
form the underlying structure for general civil- 
ized life, and all are more or less fitted to acquire 
what is needful in these lines ; but all do not need 
and should not be expected to spend time upon 

[12] 



Relation of the Trade School to the Trade 

trade instruction more than of the rudimentary, 
suggestive character to which I have previously 
referred. 

Separate schools for trade instruction are es- 
sential, but they should not be utilized until the 
student has arrived at an age where choice may 
be intelligently made and a serious conclusion 
reached as to his life work. 

The separate trade school with co-operation of 
employers also gives favorable opportunity for 
concentrated observation upon the part of in- 
structors and employers, so that the unfitness of 
a student for a chosen calling may be speedily 
determined and his true bent discovered. 

Finally I offer this suggestion. The opportu- 
nity for usefulness of a specific trade school has, 
for the most part, been considered as one that 
could only be taken advantage of by the compar- 
atively young — at all events, by those just enter- 
ing upon a trade ; but in considering the relation 
of the trade school to the trade, I think it well 
to comprehend that many of those who consider 
themselves good enough mechanics might become 
more valuable to themselves and to the craft 
generally should they place themselves under 
instruction in the trade school in their spare hours, 
either day or evening. 

The old maxim informs us that '* It is never 
too late to mend." This might well be modified 
to read, " One is never too old to learn," and as 
in all the manual trades or callings the most skill- 

[13] 



Relation of the Trade School to the Trade 

fill workman is the one most sought, as well as 
the highest paid, I am inclined to the belief that 
the value of the trade school to the individual 
workman, to the trade, and to the community, will 
not have its fullest demonstration until it shall 
have so enlarged its scope and advanced its meth- 
ods that the skilled craftsman as well as the 
entered apprentice shall find within its doors en- 
couragement and opportunity for constant devel- 
opment and improvement. 



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